Meet the Makers: Fermented Fire Hot Sauce

Some sauces are about heat. This one is about time.

When the world shut down in 2020, Tony Mason was a professional chef, stuck in a kitchen while his wife sent him photos of the family events he was missing. "It made me realize what was important in life, and what I was missing," he says. "That was family and the kids. They don't stay young forever. Time flies."

So the family made a choice. They would find something to build together, and that something turned out to be delicious hot sauce.

Today, making it is a family job. Everyone gathers around the table to pluck the green stems off the peppers, one by one, batch after batch. It is, by Tony's own cheerful admission, a lot of plucking. "This gives us the time to come together as a family," he says. "We could just have that time and cherish what's important. That is exactly what we decided. You know what? Let's do it."

One pepper at a time.

The first real break came from friends. Paula and Dave at the Last Chance Saloon loved the sauce and told them to set up a booth and see what people thought. The response caught them off guard. Every time they brought hot sauce, they sold out.

For much of the first year, matriarch Thenisa held the whole thing down almost single-handedly, keeping the recipes and the batches going while raising three kids. "Mama bears are amazing," he says. Giving up never made the list. "I felt in my heart that I had to keep it going," she says. "I'm not going to give it up."

That is the core of Fermented Fire: a family who chose each other first, and built something with a lot of heat and even more heart.

Plan your visit

Fermented Fire Hot Sauce is a featured maker on the Badlands Eats journey through Canada's Badlands. There are plenty more places to eat, stay, and linger a little longer: